History of the Fading Footsteps
by Wing Moon
Summary: Discontinued...


**PLEASE READ **

**This is a Crossover between Naruto with Naruto, Avata, Spirited Away and just a little bit of Fulllmetal. Also this a Challenge Fic I wrote for ****Kraken's Ghost****. **

**My first time using Japanese words and honorific ending so sorry if it sound weird in the end. I wanted to use it because it sounds better than "Master Iruka".**

**WARNING: Characters Deaths, Blood, and Violence **

**Summary: Konoha is suffering after the death of the Third Hokage. The other villages are ready to attack to break Konoha down. The Elders have made a decision that may change the future of Konoha forever. In a Village there is a secret where "It was said that people who survived it came out with amazing powers and skills. This exam was set far and deep into the Village that you didn't even now that you were in the exam until you either woke up or was dead. If you did wake up, then you either changed for the good or went crazy and killed yourself." This where the story begins….Iruka, Neji and Naruto are sent to these to find out what they all about. When they get there all three are through into another world. Crossover with Naruto, Avatar and Spirited Away the three experience strange things. Challenge Fic written for Kraken's Ghost contest.**

Chapter 1:

The Village Hidden in the Clouds had just been built and was praised for having the most famed and strongest ninja in the world. It was also known for its many secrets. The secrets helped and hurt the village and eventually drove it to its doom. In the end, there were only a few that knew of the Village Hidden in the Clouds and her secrets.

But then there was only one; after the Kyuubi's attack on the Village Hidden in the Leaves. That was because the Village Hidden in the Clouds had been behind the attack and, it turned out, for even more beyond the Kyuubi attack…

Konoha was the only one other Village to boast strong and renowned ninja. However, Konoha had better ninja than the Village Hidden in the Clouds.

Thus began the Great War. Testing each other to see which one would break before the other the Villages started their own wars against their weakened nations.

In the end, too many deaths piled up and too much blood was spilt for either to go on and both Villages signed a treaty for a truce. Secrets were traded to seal the pact. But the Village Hidden in the Clouds was far more angered by this than Konoha since nothing important or useful to them had been given. And all they had to show for giving up their own precious secret was peace. The Village Hidden in the Clouds spat at that and started turning to other methods to keep their secrets only among themselves.

Their first tactic was called the 'The Third Secret World War'.

The Village Hidden in the Clouds started a rumor that had bigger impact on the other peoples of the world than they knew. But it original purpose was to erase what the people thought they knew.

However they failed to notice until it was too late that one the person that they had feared to have live had became Hokage for Konoha. That person's name was Namikaze Minato.

They had heard of Minato's skills before, but this was too much for the Cloud Village to take. Regardless, they set their next plan in motion.

The Kyuubi attack was such an easy option that, even though many people were killed, to make it go the work for them was surprisingly simple.

For Namikaze Minato died trying to protect his precious village.

However they had not expected another person to know about their secret from that damn-can't-they-all-die-already village Konoha. They only found out later that the leader of the Hyuuga clan knew it, too.

All the Council of Cloud pulled at their hair and went crazy, trying again to find another solution.

And they did….they always did…

It was a plain and simple plan: just kidnap one of those eyeless brats and make it look like they wanted those godforsaken eyes. However it was really to get them to sacrifice the person who knew their secret.

And once again, it worked like a charm.

Yet, while all of this was happening, they had no idea that they were instead creating and setting up their own ultimate downfall.

They had no idea that they had left two boys alive and well… Two sons who could have one day come to bite them in the butt.

However, even though that would be a fitting end to them it wasn't eventually happened.

The Village Hidden in the Clouds had sent so many people to their doom that it was strange how long the Cloud Village had even lasted this long. One of the people that was sent to their doom ultimately became the one that came back to attack them.

Only these secrets that they kept were much too valuable and they were more than willing to let them bring their doom.

For these secrets were what made them the strong and well-known Village they were and without  
them, they were nothing more than just another Hidden Village.

These secret were…

000

Iruka woke up startled and felt the sweat drip down his face. He felt the nightmare release its hold on him and let his feet hit the cold floor. It was winter in Konoha and you could see the soft, downy white flake falling from the sky. Iruka watched them from his window, indifferent, as he tried to remember the events of his nightmare.

He remembered that it had been when he was younger and his parents had still been alive.

They were telling him stories about the Village Hidden in the Clouds.

Even though they were telling the stories lightly he could still see that he needed to listen carefully.

His mother would always start in a spooky voice, like she was telling a horror story, "There is this story that the Village Hidden in the Clouds only had strong ninja because they had a strange and terrible secret that made them this way."

His father would continue, "This resulted in more secrets that made the whole damned village crazy."

His mother would then, of course, scold his father for saying curse words in front him. And, after they had both argued about how old Iruka was and whether he did or did not need to be protect from curse words, they finally got on with the story.

"Just like we have the Forest of Death for our Chuunin exam, they also had an exam. But it was much different and was said to be much more brutal than even the Mist Village's exam. It was said that people who survived it came out with amazing powers and skills. This exam was set far and deep into the Village that you didn't even now that you were in the exam until you either woke up or was dead. If you did wake up, then you either changed for the good or went crazy and killed yourself. It really separated the weak from the strong. We weren't told all the details, but Iruka listen up, don't ever wander and get lost. If you wander there could be an accident and you might not be alive anymore to tell this tale."

Iruka felt a chill run down his spine as his parent told him that story both from fear and excitement. He wanted to go because he wanted the amazing powers and skills. However, he did want to live to see his sixteenth birthday and the story felt too surreal to be reality.

But still, his parent kept on telling him that story even if he didn't want to hear it anymore.

In addition, they always had to add more details to it; like how one of the ninja learned how to 'bend' elements with resulted in the first development of a jutsu. Another story told about going into the past or future and changing the course events. And so it kept on, the stories getting even more weird and bizarre up until the Kyuubi attack.

That was when the nightmares started.

He didn't know but when he looked into Kyuubi's bloody red eyes he felt like he was trapped in one of those stories that his parent told him.

Too dreamlike to be real and too true to _not_ be real, he was caught between two places and had to fight to wake up.

Eventually he did but it he still felt like he was still there, caught in between the dream and the waking.

Iruka sighed as got ready for the day.

000

It was a fitting end for the Village Hidden in the Clouds as bodies were scattered around the desert like land. No vegetation could be seen and the only thing that could be seen since were dead bodies and blood.

Actually there was only one living thing there and it stood in the middle of the scattered bodies looking towards the sky. It isn't clear what gender it is but it was human even though that too was hard to know. If you looked closely it had black hair in Mohawk style and blood-shot eyes, one purple (as though someone punched it) and the other eye a dull black. Its face looked like it had been put into boiling water. Its cheeks were melted in a way that was too disgusting for words to describe. It wore the familiar black cloak with red clouds on it. However, it had more red spots that could be identified as blood spots and had a hole in one of the clouds.

There was no wind but the cloak shocked the eye first and then you could hear a heinous laugh coming from the figure.

Then it spoke.

"I should thank those idiots for the letting me borrow their clothing and symbol."

The voice was impenitent and spoke of the "borrowed clothes and symbol" as though it was thinking of the bodies around it like they were a field of flowers.

It took its hand out of its cloak as it looked at it strangely.

The hand looked odd, unfamiliar to its environment. It looked like a metal hand and it seemed to extend up the whole arm. It wasn't the arm itself that was strange but how it was made. It was as though there was a little machine built into it and, if you listened closely, you could hear the little clack it made as it moved in the arm. It seemed expensive too.

The owner itself seemed pleased about it as it delicately let it fall to its side.

It pushed its cloak off and you could see that it was a male even though you rather it put his cloak back on.

His disfigured form was much more noticeable as you could see his arms were oddly out of proportion. He walked like each step would lead him to fall face down onto the ground. He wore a torn fish net shirt and long black pants to try to hide his disfiguration.

He walked to a corpse close by and called out.

"YOU ASS, WAKE UP! I NEED YOU! RISE AND SERVE ME!" he yelled.

He kicked the body impatiently and crossed his arms to the best of his ability.

Leisurely the body started to get up and went to kneel down and bow its head.

"Our army is ready to service you, Darousama."

It seems to stress the other man out and it delivered a kick to the bowed head. The body dissolved back into bones as it hit the ground. It echoed through the land and as suddenly as it happened you could hear a thousand echoes of footsteps all headed towards Darou.

With a shift of his hand, all the footsteps paused.

"You really think you could stop me…the one that give you life. IS THERE ANY FAITHFUL SEVANTS HERE? IF NOT THEN GO THE HELL AWAY!" bellowed Darou.

A mist came over Darou and he was again alone.

"Stupid ghosts," said Darou as he made sure to step on the bodies to show his disrespect to them.

He took off his cloak and lifted his other hand that looked normal compared to the rest of his body. Two trees grew where his hand was before it drops to his side. He showed a sadist smile to his guests as he took his time to see how they fared so far.

One them actually had the nerve to spit at him.

His smile grew crueler.

"You shameless fool! You're going to destroy all the efforts we made to keep this a secret!" said a man, the same one who spat at Darou as he struggled against the tree roots.

Darou chuckled viciously at the man's stupid attempts to get out.

"Old man, I'm sick you're superstitious ways. Because of you I look like this! Actually I should be thank you Council of the all mighty Hidden Cloud Village! Going through all those "dreams" can really give someone so much POWER!" roared Darou at the group once known as the Cloud Council.

The man cringed as he knew what Darou said was true and was ashamed of it.

"It was the only way to stay on top. To make sure they didn't come on top," said the man as he looked at the other tree where a Konoha Chuunin was trapped beside him.

The Konoha Chuunin had her head bowed down but snapped her head up to furiously glare at Darou. She was a petite girl with short blonde hair and had blue eyes. Nothing more could be said only that she was obliviously a Chuunin.

"The Hokage is going to hear about this! When that happens you're going to regret doing this, Akatsuki!" she yelled, adding her own spit afterwards.

Darou was highly amused of this.

"Go ahead girl! Here I will help you; I'll send an eagle for you! Also let's just make one thing clear…I work alone! I just borrowed these clothes. It was a party gift after I killed all of them," said Darou as his eyes showed how happy he was to see that both his guests were shocked at this news.

"That's impossible! How could you…no way! How did you move it! It's stuck here!" yelled the Cloud Council.

Darou faced away from his guest's as he walked around.

"Let's just say I gather souvenirs as I travel," he said.

Before the other two could answer Darou turn around and with his normal hand, fire hit the two guests.

An anguished scream could be heard from two as they burned to death.

Darou spun around again as he put on the fallen Akatsuki cloak as he did a bird call. He raised his metal arm up as an eagle flew down and sat on it.

"Give this personal message to the Hokage, my dear," he whispered to eagle.

With the eagle gone now with the message, Darou got ready to put his plan into action.

"Let the games begin…"

000

After the Hokage's death, it was like there was a huge bubble that was stuck between the past and present covering Konoha. The inside was going upside down trying finding out all the missing, dead and other casualties that resulted from the attack from Sound. Outside the other Villages were either being dragged down with them or getting ready to take them down before going down too. So it was a wonder or maybe not so much a wonder but more of a 'what took them so long' kind of sentiment.

Tsunade studied the mass of paper in front of her. It was only her third week and things seemed to be going downhill more than going up.

'I'm going to kill Jiraiya if I ever get all this paperwork done. Where is my sake?' Thought Tsunade as she looked for the sake she knew was around somewhere.

She heard a knock on her door just when she finally found the sake.

"Please don't be…."

"Tsunade-sama! You should be working not drinking! Anyways the Elders want to meet with you," said Shizune.

She wanted to bang her head on the table or at least drink ten gallons of sake before she met them.

"Come on, Shizune," she pleaded as she put some sake into a cup that popped out of nowhere.

"Tsunade-sama…. I won't make any excuse for you. Anyways it's important!" Shizune said.

"It's always important," she said as she stood up. "But if they say other word about making Naruto into a weapon or about how I let another Uchiha slip through my fingers; I'll murder them myself."

Shizune didn't say anything as she followed Tsunade to meeting.

Tsunade cursed under her breath.

All three were there.

Koharu sat with Homura on the side as they watched Tsunade with piercing eyes. However she paid no attention to them but kept her eyes locked with Danzo.

His cane sat next to his chair and he sat back with his good eye on Tsunade more with curiosity than with anything else. His other eye was still bandaged from whatever war or fight he had lost it in. He smiled politely as he said:

"How was your day Tsunade?"

She despised that man so much.

But smiling she said, "Wonderful, how about yours?"

"Very good. How is the Ky—demon vessel?"

"Do you mean Naruto? He's wonderful, too. So why did you call me here?"

This time Koharu spoke up as she said, "We are under attack."

Tsunade burst out laughing as she said, "What took them so long?"

Koharu and Homura glared at Tsunade.

Danzo's face twitched as he said, "He was seen in our old enemy territory."

Tsunade sat lazy on the chair facing Danzo and said, "Yes, so?"

"We need him gone. But before that, we need what he has," Danzo said as he got up and started pacing.

"I see; but why did you call me here?"

"Since we have lost so many, we don't have enough people to go and check it out," said Homura as he looked at Tsunade out of the corner of his eye.

"So…can you please get to the point? I have a lot of paper to get to," she said dryly.

"We want these three people to go and check it out," said Koharu as she handed the paper to her.

Tsunade grabbed the paper as she read the names. He eye widen as she abruptly got up and yelled.

"ARE YOU CRAZY?! THIS AN S-RANKED MISSION! NARUTO AND NEJI ARE JUST KIDS! THEY CAN'T HANDLE THIS!"

Danzo stopped pacing as he looked at Tsunade.

"That is not for you decide. It's either that or you make Naruto a wea-"

Tsunade punched Danzo in the face.

There was a split second of silence as everyone froze.

"Tsunade!" three voice scolded Tsunade as she smirked at a shocked Danzo.

She threw the paper at Danzo and said, "I will find three other people."

Then she turned around and left.

Danzo called at her retreating figure.

"There is no one else!"

000

She hated it when he was right.

Biting her lip, she looked at the three people standing in front her.

Uzumaki Naruto, blonde hair, blue eyes, with whisker marks on his cheeks was a short child, hyper and loved ramen. He had no family other than his team members who were Haruno Sakura and Hatake Kakashi. He'd lost his best friend, also a part of his team, named Uchiha Sasuke, about a week ago and had failed to bring him back with the team that was appointed to him. His ranking was still Genin.

Hyuuga Neji had long brown hair tied at the end; his bloodline eyes were a pale, murky white and he was a little bit taller than Naruto at his age of 13. He was arrogant but friendlier since meeting Naruto. His uncle took care of him after the death of his father and on his forehead was the curse that all other people not born into the main branch wore. His team members were Rock Lee, Mighty Gai and Tenten. He had also been with Naruto in the last week when he had gone to bring back Sasuke. His rank was also Genin.

Umino Iruka looked like a twin but older version of Shikamaru and had a scar along his nose. He had brown eyes, dark skin, and he was the tallest in the whole group but was also the kindest and down to earth person you could know. He is about 23 years and work in the academy as a teacher. He was Naruto's academy teacher and is also another orphan. His team members are now dead but they had been a Hyuuga and Inuzuka. When asked who they were or for more details about them, his eyes sadden and he says: "They were my best friends." No one bothers for more details after that as they didn't want to cause any more grief for the man. His rank is Chuunin.

Tsunade muttered under her breathe all the cures she knew. All orphans so that if they died then no one would care. Maybe not Neji or Iruka so much but she knew in her heart that there really was no one else for Naruto.

"Tsunade-obaasan can you hurry up and tell us why we here I need to continue training to bring Sasuke back!" Naruto finally said.

"Naruto don't call the Hokage obaasan!" said Iruka as he smiled down at Naruto.

Naruto grinned back as he said, "Tsunade-obaasan doesn't mind!"

Iruka looked at Naruto, then at Tsunade and laughed.

"Ok, if you say so, Naruto."

Tsunade let a smile form as she got ready to tell them the mission.

"No I don't like being called that actually but, Naruto, Neji and Iruka I am sending you on a mission."

All three eyes were on her and she knew that she had to continue.

"It's an S-ranked mission and before anyone of you says anything. I know that it is a high ranking mission but you are all that is left. Your mission is to go to the Village Hidden in the Clouds and there are rumor saying that our foremost enemy is there. More details are in the scroll that each of you have when you got here. You are to leave tomorrow. Any questions?"s he asked.

"Whoop!" Naruto said as he jumped up and down.

Neji didn't say anything but he was smiling slightly.

Iruka was the only person that didn't seem happy.

"Hokage-sama, why am I going? Do you really need three people?" asked Iruka.

Tsunade looked straight into Iruka eyes and saw concern.

Before she could answer Naruto cut her off:

"We can handle it Iruka-sensei, right Neji?"

"Right."

Iruka looked at the two children next to him and sighed in defeat.

"OK, but you have to listen to me. I am going to be the leader. Understood?" said Iruka using the tone that made everyone know he meant business.

Tsunade tried to hold back her laughter as Naruto stood up straighter and Neji just eyed Iruka weirdly but agreed.

"OK, you are dismissed."

Once they were gone, Tsunade turned her chair to look out the window.

"If there are any Kami up there, please look after them," prayed Tsunade as she turned back to her paperwork and poured some sake, hoping it would ease her heart.

TBC…

**Please Reveiw.**


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